1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to print dyeing of flat materials wherein it is desired to produce an image thereon which gives a three dimensional effect appearance.
While the invention has applicability to print dyeing of all types of materials, textile fabric and flat piece materials such as, for example, upholstery fabric, sheets, drapery, flat work, formica, ceramics, china, and the like, the invention is particularly applicable to print dyeing of pile fabric materials, such as, carpeting and rugs, wherein the dye penetrates the surface of the face yarns and a continuous image is formed on the surface of the pile yarns in a continuous print process.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recent styling trends in tufted carpet involve color printing of the carpet pile on a greige background or on a single predyed background color. Silk screens, flat bed screens, belt screens or rotary screens are commonly employed to produce a variety of repetitive printed color patterns on carpeting and other pile fabrics. Ever-changing public tastes have created demands for new and unusual color patterns in pile carpeting.
Prior art machines are known for printing of carpet pile to produce varying and non-monotonous designs in one or more colors. However, the machines and techniques employed have not been satisfactory in that the resulting patterns are generally the work of individual artists who design a particular pattern from which a screen is made, much the same way a painter prepares and paints an oil painting. Accordingly, each style or design is thus subject to and limited to the artist's ability.
Printed screens used in the carpet industry are not readily adapted for printing fine detail obtainable by photographic methods. To this end, the mesh size of carpet printing screens generally contains about 60-74 openings per inch. A conventional half tone screen used to form half tone positive film normally contains about 50-150 lines. For the general run of letterpress printing, screen sizes of 65-88 are commonly used depending primarily on the smoothness of the surface of the paper on which the halftone is printed. The smoother the surface, the finer the screen.
In applying photographic techniques to carpet printing, I have found that several factors directly affect the capability of drying. First, carpet surfaces are relatively rough tending to resist even application of dye and penetration when printing extremely fine detail. Secondly, the thickness of printing screens for rotary printer applications tend to build up and fill in the holes. In flat bed screens, the application of lacquers tends to, again, build up in the extremely fine hole areas. As a result, fine detail printing becomes difficult to achieve. Attempts to overcome this drawback and impart more realism into patterns have resorted to the interaction of computers and optical scanning techniques to reproduce an image the face of a fabric corresponding to a selected photograph, artwork or other type of graphic material. Such processes are extremely expensive.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to overcome the drawbacks of prior art processes and provide a method of continuously print dyeing textile materials such as pile carpeting which gives a design having a realistic image developed from photographic art work.